Presenter Details

Maja Gutman Mušič is an established interdisciplinary scholar whose research bridges Anthropology, Philosophy of Mind, Media Studies, and Philosophy of Science to illuminate two themes: the intricate psychological structure of dreams and the evolving nexus between human consciousness and technology. Dr. Gutman Mušič earned her PhD in Anthropology and Media Studies from the Institute for Humanities at Alma Mater Europaea in 2016, founded and affiliated by the European Academy of Sciences and Arts. As a 2021 Fulbright Visiting Scientist at UCLA's Anthropology Department, she initiated research on automated recognition of archetypal patterns in large dream report collections using Natural Language Processing tools, transforming approaches to the study of collective unconscious phenomena. Her seminal first-authored digital scholarly monograph, 2020 Dreams: Toward a New Understanding of the Dreaming-Waking Continuum (Stanford University Press, 2023), marks a significant shift in dream studies. It offers a meticulous examination of the deep interplay between media influence and dream patterns, revealing how global crises—most notably the COVID-19 pandemic—exert subliminal yet powerful effects on the collective dreaming consciousness. She also co-edited a special issue of Poligrafi on the philosophy and science of dreaming, published that same year.Earlier recognition includes a National Science Foundation a competitive grant supporting her role as Visiting Researcher for the Culture Analytics Long Program at UCLA's Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics in 2016, where she explored computational methods for studying various cultural phenomena.Currently, Dr. Gutman Mušič holds dual academic appointments: as Research Associate at the Institute of Philosophical and Religious Studies at the Science and Research Centre Koper, Slovenia, and Assistant Professor in Humanities and Media Studies at Alma Mater Europaea University, Slovenia. Since 2016, she has presented at over thirty international conferences, reflecting her active engagement in contemporary interdisciplinary scholarship.